


Once Upon A Dream

by ViolentlyScreaming



Category: Sleeping Beauty - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Dreams, F/F, Faeries - Freeform, Fantasy, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 14:17:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20931611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolentlyScreaming/pseuds/ViolentlyScreaming
Summary: When Aurora is asleep she dreams. But sometimes those dreams might just be reality.Rating subject to change, updates will be sporadic and based upon both my schedule and how often I feel like writing





	Once Upon A Dream

Every time Aurora sleeps, she dreams; recently, these dreams have involved the most captivating woman she’s ever seen. She longs to run her fingers across the sculpted cheekbones, her thumb to run gently down the defined jawline. She wishes to trace the horns that she’s unsure whether or not are real, and to remove the hood of her dark cloak concealing what she knows to be luxuriously thick black hair. She wants to run her fingers through the strands and sort out any tangles, she wants to be the one to stroke it as the woman falls asleep at night. She wishes to kiss full lips painted in dark lipstick. She wants to see the sage faerie in person. Instead she wakes up for the fourth night in a row, her dream the same as always.  
She sees the woman and they lock eyes. Nothing is said. She looks for forever and for no time at all. And then she wakes.  
Her aunts are bickering over what it is they wish Aurora to learn today. She’s used to this, it’s an every morning occurrence. She smiles to herself. She knows they aren’t her real aunties, she knows they can do magic. She knows because she’s seen it when they think she’s not looking. She knows because when they think she’s asleep they talk about how they need to stop the dark faerie Maleficent. She knows they’re faeries too.  
She thinks she’d like to know what’s so bad about this Maleficent that she’s been sent into hiding, because now that she’s older she knows that’s what’s happened. The secrecy and her sneaking into town to make friends with others. The fact that she had to lie to play with anyone her age. The fact that she’s been isolated her whole life.  
She doesn’t blame her aunties, she knows they’re trying their hardest to protect her from what they perceive to be a threat. But she doesn’t blame Maleficent either. Nobody has told her why Maleficent is called an evil faerie, what she’s done to garner that reputation. Aurora figures Maleficent can’t be all bad, just as she knows her aunts aren’t all good like they think they are.  
She’s 19 now, a legal adult for 3 years in the kingdom she resides in. She’s never met her parents but they claim it’s not currently safe for her to come home. Shortly after her birth, a civil war broke out. When she was 16, she found out her parents were the king and queen of the kingdom, and that she was the only child. Her aunts said they sent her away for her protection a few years after her birth. Aurora thinks that 19 years is long for a civil war, and every story she’s heard about it claimed the war ended 13 years ago, but she can’t imagine why she wouldn’t have been home by now if that were the case.  
Of course, her parents don’t feel like parents, and she doesn’t feel like a princess, the castle isn’t home and she has no particular desire to get married and have children and rule a kingdom. She’s not even sure she’s interested in men, let alone the prince she’s been betrothed to since she was a child. But she knows from whispers from parents of children she played with in the nearby town as a kid, whispers about the two old spinsters that live together on the hill, whispers that they’re perverted. She knows from these whispers that not being interested in men isn’t an option. So she says nothing, makes no indication that she’s not interested; and then, at night, she dreams. 

~~~

On this night her dream is different. The green lady is still there, in all her regal beauty, this time looking younger. Aurora guesses her to be a teenager. Aurora is not herself this time. She’s not sure why she’s aware of this, but she knows she’s not in her own body. She’s outside of the events in her dream. She follows the green lady down the corridor nonetheless.  
They’re in a castle, she thinks. It looks familiar. Almost as if...like she’d been there before. She knows she was raised in a castle until she was nearly four but she can’t remember anything about it no matter how hard she tries.  
A stab of regret hits her in this dream, and she thinks it’s absurd that she’s aware of her waking feelings in a dream. So she refocuses on the green lady. She’s stomping with vigor, clearly on a mission, angry. Her emotions display vividly across her visage, a far cry from the cool unaffected face from her dreams. The younger version of this woman is brimming with emotion, bubbled up and threatening to spill over with every step she takes.  
The woman abruptly stops. Aurora was so taken with watching her walk, seeing her so unlike she usually did, that she misses what caused it, and turns around to face what caused the woman to freeze.  
It’s herself.  
It’s herself but it’s not. It’s her at three years of age, looking wonderingly up at this angry young woman who’s stopped stalking down the corridor and is looking down at young Aurora with what looks like to be conflicting feelings of sorrow, anger and regret.  
The stare-down between the two younger selves is much like the older ones. Nothing is said, they just look. Until this time, the woman speaks.  
“I’m sorry.” She says. “I’m sorry but I have to and I’m sorry that it means one day you’ll be as hurt and angry as I am. Or maybe you won’t, because you won’t remember her. And I’m sorry.”  
Little Aurora just continues to blink at her, unaffected. Grown Aurora understands perfectly and wants to know why her green goddess feels so strongly that she has to do this. She knows better than to believe in black and white morals, and perhaps not remembering her mother allows her to look at the situation with less of a bias and more with sympathy, but she still feels a small twinge of bitter resentment. Her mother isn’t dead, she knows this, but it still hurts that someone she had felt so strong a connection with over dreams, someone who she thinks she now knows who she is, would do this to a young Aurora.  
But then she hears why and her heart hurts all over again.  
“But she killed my mother first.”  
And Aurora hears shouting in the corridor from guards, and the dream blurs into a myriad of voices and colors and movement, but she sees nothing and hears nothing but the voice of whom she now knows to be Maleficent over and over in her head.  
But she killed my mother first. 

~~~

Aurora wakes in a cold sweat. She remembers every detail of her dream vividly- so vividly she begins to wonder if it was a memory and not a dream after all. She supposes it shouldn’t matter to her either way, but just because something shouldn’t doesn’t mean it doesn’t, and this mattered to Aurora.  
With years of secrecy wrapped around the shrouded name of Maleficent, Aurora was desperate to know any and everything she could about the dark faerie. Gentle prodding had not worked with her aunties. She was finally willing to admit to herself that if she truly wanted to know about Maleficent, and this time she was sure she did, she would have to find out about it herself.  
She wasn’t particularly sure where to start her search. She supposed it would be nice if villages had their own library of books and history like they did in castles, but most peasants couldn’t read anyway. Her next thought was to find a tavern and ask around for tales of Maleficent there, but she was hesitant. Aurora wasn’t a vain girl but she was self aware enough to realize that a pretty girl like her in a tavern full of tired, drunk men wasn’t a good mix. But where else could she go?  
Steeling herself, Aurora dresses in her plainest dress and hides her hair under a scarf in a desperate attempt not to draw the attention of the tavern goers. Satisfied she’d done all she could to make herself plain and unassuming, she set off for the tavern a village over. She supposed her aunties might come back and worry about the fact that she was gone, but she didn’t plan to take too long. She was going to go in, get some stories that hopefully answered her questions, and get back. It wasn’t unlike her to wander the nearby woods for hours at a time, so she knew she had a built in excuse for her absence.  
She hummed to herself as she walked. It was a song she had known since she was a girl, one of the few lingering memories from when she lived in the castle. She can’t remember who sang it to her, she imagined it was her mother based on the lyrics, but she was certain she was mostly taken care of by nannies.  
“I know you I walked with you once upon a dream,” she broke into lyric. The birds that had been flying nearby her for the first fifteen minutes of her humming had caught on and began chirping to the tune. She smiled. The memory of the song was a fond one and she often sung it when she was nervous, and going into a tavern with a group of unknown men to ask questions was definitely nerve wracking.  
The comfort of knowing that she had, at one point, a maternal figure who cared warmed her. The song brought feelings of comfort, the memory of being wrapped up in warm arms and hugged. She felt not so alone when she sang the song. With her recent dreams of Maleficent, she felt even more bolstered. The song felt like fate. Once upon a dream, her mother saw her, and now once upon a dream she saw Maleficent. Now she only needed to know more about the hauntingly beautiful faerie, and perhaps track her down.  
“Track her down?” Aurora thought. She wasn’t sure where the notion came from but the longer she thought about it, the less opposed she was. Sure, it might be a little weird for her to come tracking Maleficent down fifteen years later, but really, she was owed some answers. And only Maleficent could give them. If she just ignored how devastatingly attractive she found her to be, then there was no real ulterior motive and she could find her with clean conscious, and not feel like a stalker. But those pesky feelings of attraction kept tapping her on the shoulder, reminding her, “hello I’m here!”  
So perhaps it was best that Aurora didn’t visit Maleficent at all after this. Maybe she could just get her answers from tavern goers and stories from town and be content. Maybe...no, she definitely needed answers from Maleficent. She would just have to hide the fact that she wanted to kiss her. It was...deviant... and she had a betrothed. Even though she didn’t know him. Even though she liked girls. Even though she didn’t quite believe she was deviant for it.  
And really, what did it matter if Aurora liked the faerie. She wasn’t exactly trusted by the masses. She’d rather Maleficent not be repulsed by her, but really, who was she going to tattle to? Nobody would believe Maleficent that she liked girls if Aurora denied it.  
So it was settled. Aurora would find Maleficent after the taverns, and it wouldn’t matter that she liked her. Not one bit. The only important matter now, really, was that of her aunties...  
She loved them, she really did, but they would be a hinderance to her pursuit of knowledge. She was only supposed to know castle approved things. Things like french and etiquette and household management. She was able to pass on the embroidery, but really that was only because her aunts couldn’t figure out how to do it without magic.  
Really their capabilities to do much of anything without magic was remedial. She wasn’t sure how exactly she survived all these years. She imagines when she was younger it was likely easy to distract her while one of them performed magic. Perhaps now that’s why they encourage her to explore the woods nearby as much as she likes.  
As she pondered this, forest soon gave way to a dusty path, indicating the village was nearby.


End file.
